Last week, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan released a report on Israel's attack on Jenin in April. A reminder of the highlights: After two weeks of heavy fighting in Jenin's refugee camp, journalists and human rights organisations (including Human Rights Watch and...
The New World Order and the Stone Age
The retiring and the designated Israeli Chiefs-of-Staff sound like twins: both Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Yaalon insist that the next war is inevitable. – Yet another war? Yes: the re-occupation of the West Bank has not satiated the junta's desires at all. In fact,...
How Jews Can Support Israel
The United Jewish Communities of North America has recently decided to give its financial support also to Israeli settlers in the occupied territories (Ha'aretz, 14.6.02). At first, out of warm Jewish solidarity, I got very worried. Persistent rumours, especially...
Palestinian Enslavement Entering a New Phase
The Israeli far-right – always the best indicator of Israel's true intentions – is quite outspoken: its aim is to make Palestinian life unbearable to a point that they would rather get up and go. Asked about his conception of "voluntary transfer" of...
Killing and Taking Possession
"The word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwells in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he is gone down to take possession of it. You shall speak to him, saying, Thus says Yahweh,...
In Times of War Crimes
"That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man – that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem." (Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in...
Israel – A Suicide Bomber?
Palestinian suicide attacks have been singled out, overemphasised and isolated from their context in Israel's 35-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, the proper infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism. Professional demonisers like Thomas Friedman work hard...
Suicidal Truths
Under the especially revealing title "Suicidal Lies" (31.3), Thomas Friedman of the New York Times gives his distorted version of Middle East realities. Friedman's short essay is full of flaws, but since he shouldn't be taken all too seriously, I won't...
The Auschwitz Logic
Sorry to disappoint some of my readers: terrorists haven't got me yet. Yesterday (Saturday) in Tel-Aviv they were close, but no cigar. A minute ago, my parents called from Haifa saying they just survived another attack. "May they move next to your home", an American...
Against Negotiations
The established Israeli "Peace Camp" – Peace Now, Meretz, parts of the Labour Party – is under pressure. The "refuseniks" movement – soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories – is growing steadily, in what seems to be the most...